| I'm trying to think about how the web is different for a new user now vs 15 years ago. I, as a consumer not an academic/student/employee, buy an internet access account from my local monopoly highspeed internet provider. I'm set up with my wifi router/modem and suddenly have a LAN that can connect to a huge variety of sites via the web. Note that the web isn't in any way distinguished from the internet. For most folks, the two have become synonymous. I have 3 (imaginary) devices to use. A phone, a gaming console, and a PC. 2 of those devices are already using a walled-garden app store, leaving only the PC as something still sort of free. So I think there's a burden on Apple/Google, and Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo to put measures in place to increase freedom and decrease the negatives of the web. Yet they don't control the main culprits of the problems that the web faces: Twitter, Facebook, and I would add news sites comments, and Reddit, here. Those web sites do have a huge responsibility for the problems that their users have added to the web. Their hands-off attitude allows bad actors to fester and grow, pulling people in and further spreading their message to new sites. I don't see the problem being tackled anytime soon though. |